Paris 2015: André Gill, Cimetière du Père-Lachaise #9

 

André Gill (1840–1885) – aka Lois-Alexandre Gosset de Guines – was a satirical cartoonist, painter, and singer-songwriter noted for his cartoons of (among many others) Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas père, Charles Dickens and Jules Verne.

He painted the bar sign for the 'Cabaret des Assassins' in Montmartre, depicting a rabbit escaping from a saucepan. The place then became known as 'Au Lapin à Gill', later to be called 'Le Lapin agile' (which was famous for its literary clientele and their pranks), and which bears that name today.

Gill was a member Le Cercle des poètes zutiques which used to meet at Hôtel des Étrangers, rue Racine, which is now Hôtel Belloy Saint-Germain. Other members of the group were Ernest Cabaner, Charles Cros, Camille Pelletan, Arthur Rimbaud, Léon Valade and Paul Verlaine.

Gill was interned in the psychiatric hospital Charenton at Saint-Maurice in 1883, where he died two years later at the age of  forty-four.